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LYRICS 

from a 

LIBRARY 



Clinton 

Scollard 
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LYRICS 

from a Library 



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LYRICS 

from a LIBRARY 



Clinton 
Scollard 



George William Browning 
Clinton, New York 








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Copyright, April, 1913 
6y Clinton Scollard 





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CONTENTS 



The Boole-Lover .... 

On a Copy of Keat's "Endymion 

With Herrick in Spring 

John Cleveland, Poet-Cavalier 

On a Copy of Theocritus 

The Bookstall .... 

A First Edition 

A Bookman's Pleasures 

A Book-Lover's Choice 

A First Edition Copy of Lovelace 

In An Alcove .... 

William Winstanley, Critic . 

The Bookman's Paradise 

The Bookworm's Plaint 

To William Sharp 

A Forgotten Bard 

At Goldsmith's Grave 

Izaak Walton's Name 





CONTENTS 
(continued) 

PAGE 

The Sonnet 35 

Ad Musam 36 

The Singers 37 

On a Copy of Bayard Taylor's 'Ximena' 38 

A Summer Mood . . . . . 39 

Lanier 40 

. . 41 

. . 42 

. . 43 

. . 44 

. . 45 

. . 46 

. . 47 



^ 



Philip Freneau 
Grenville Mellen . . 

On Re-Reading Scott 
The Birth of the Sonnet 
The Troubadours 
The Sonnets of Rossetti 
To Thomas S. Jones, Jr. 







ud 




r 



From the oriels, one by one, 
Slowly fades the setting sun; 
On the marge of afternoon 
Stands the new-born crescent moon; 
In the twilight's crimson glow 
Dim the quiet alcoves grow; 
Drowsy-lidded Silence smiles 
On the long, deserted aisles; 
Out of every shadowy nook 
Spirit faces seem to look, 
Some with smiling eyes, and some 
With a sad entreaty dumb; — 
He who shepherded his sheep 
On the wild Sicilian steep, 
He above whose grave are set 
Sprays of Boman violet; — 
Poets, sages — all who wrought 
In the crucible of thought. 
Day by day as seasons glide 
On the great eternal tide, 
Noiselessly they gather thus 
In the twilight beauteous, 
Hold communion each with each, 
Closer than our earthly speech. 
Till within the east are born 
Premonitions of the morn! 




k. 




THE BOOK - LOVER 

I love a book, if there but run 
From title-page to colophon 
Something sincere that sings or glows, 
Whate'er the text be, rhyme or prose. 
And high-perched on some window-seat, 
Or in some ingle-side retreat, 
Or in an alcove consecrate 
To lore and to the lettered great, 
For happiness I need not look 
Beyond the pages of my book. 
Yea, I believe that, like an elf, 
I'd be contented with a shelf 
If thereupon with me might sit 
Some work of wisdom or of wit 
Whereto, at pleasure, I might turn, 
And the fair face of Joy discern! 




I love a book, — its throbbing heart! 
And while I may not hold the art 
That dresses it in honor scant, — 
The tree-calf "tooled" or "crushed" 

Levant, — 
Rather a rare soul, verily, 
Than a bedizened husk for me! 





So, though no Midas' magic hands 
To gold transmute my barren sands, 
Though friendly Fame deign not to lay 
About my brows the vine and bay, 
Though fond eyes marry not with mine, 
Nor lip to lip give sacred sign, 
The core of all content I know, 
A blessing that is balm for woe; 
On life with level gaze I look, 
And all because I love — a book! 





ON A COPY OF KEATS' "ENDYMION" 




Has not the glamoured season come once more,. 
When earth puts on her arras of soft green f 
See where along the meadow rillet's shore 
The wild-rose buds unfold! 
Eastward the boughs with murmurous 
laughter lean 
To warm themselves in morning's generous 
gold. 
The foxgloves nod along the English lanes 

That saw erewhile the dancing sprites of snow; 
Night-long the leaf -hid nightingale complains 

With such melodious woe 
That Sleep, enamored of her soaring strains, 
Is widely wakeful as the dim hours go. 

Ope but the page — and hark, the impassioned 
bird 
That through the hush of the be-shadowed 
hours 
Pours in the ear of dark its melting word! 
Here is as mellow song 
As ever welled from pleached laurel bowers, 
Or e'er was borne soft orient winds along; 
Here may one list all ecstasies they sung, 

The shepherds and the maids of Arcady, 
Flower-garlanded what time the world was 
young;— 
Pandean minstrelsy, 
Low flutings from slim pipes of silver tongue 
Played by the dryads on some upland lea. 






) And blent with these are heavenly whisperings \ 
As faint as whitening poplars make at dawn, 
Sublime suggestions of fine-fingered strings 
Touched in celestial air, 
And earthward through the dulling ether 
drawn, 
Yet falling on us more than earthly fair; 
The voice divine that young Endymion knew 
In the cool woodland's darkmost depths by 
night, 
When godlike ardors thrilled him through and 
through ; 
And his voice from the height 
Whither, on wakening, drenched with chilly dew, 
He sought the goddess in the gathering light. 



But ah, what mournful memories are mine, 

Song-wakened at this lavish summer-tide! 
Can I forget that sombre cypress line 
By old Rome's ruined wall, 

The lonely grave that alien grasses hide, 
And the pathetic silence shrouding all? 
Who would forget ? Blest be the song that bears 

My soul across aerial seas of space 
As wingedly as airy fancy fares! 

For now that earth's worn face 
The radiant glow of life's renewal wears, 

Would I in reverence see* that sacred place. 



10 







There would I lay these woven shreds of rhyme 

In lieu of scattered heart's-ease and the rose. 
Behold how Song has triumphed over Time, 
For still his song rings clear, 

Though where the tender Roman violet grows 
Deep has he slumbered many a fateful y<;ar! 
If to the poet's rapt imaginings 

Beauty be wed, with love of purpose high, 
Despite the cynic and his scornful flings 

Song shall not fail and die, 
But like the bird that up the azure springs 

Still thrill the heart, still fill the listening sky! 




11 





Now that all the wakened hills 
Arrased are with tender green, 
And the noon-gold daffodils 
Greet their over-lord, the sun, 
Now that tulips show their sheen, 
And a thousand ardors run 
Mead and orchard lane along — 
Voices virginal with song — 
Here's the book unfolds to me 
How to-day may still be won 
The old path to Aready! 



Pastoral revelry and rite, 
Clear airs consecrate to Fan, 
Dreams of innocent delight, 
Love in frolic guise arrayed, 
Merriment of maid and man 
In the sunshine and the shade, 
Here behold, compacted rare, 
Ever fresh and ever fair! — 
Herrick, pray reveal to me 
(Singer Hesperidian) 
Still the path to Aready! 




12 



A 




JOHN CLEVELAND, POET-CAVALIER 



He was a fearless fighting man, 

This handsome anti-Puritan 

Who smote with pen and eke with sword 

Against the bluff Cromwellian horde. 

Disciple deft of Doctor Donne, 

Had kindlier fate but shone upon 

His curls, in cut so cavalier, 

Delightful ditties to endear 

His name adown the years might ring 

For man's perennial pleasuring. 

Alack-a-day ! It might not be ! 

For he, of his Latinity 

So proud, so fain of his conceits 

Beside the Cam's elm-bowered retreats, 

From haven was swept fast and far, 

And under grim War's sanguine star 

Was rudely tossed and racked and swirled, 

Then pent within a prison-world, 

And finally flung forth too spent 

To long fight life's vexed argument. 

You know him not? Have hardly heard 
His lightest claim to fame averred? 
Well, 'tis but flotsam, that may be 
The all he left posterity. 
Yet somehow in the strokes he dealt 
"Old Noll" (I pledge he raised a welt!) 




13 



J 




And in dactylic dash displayed 
Anent some merry Cambridge maid, 
And in fleet lyric flights where he 
Ran riot in hyperbole, 
I seem to catch — elusive — thin — 
The magical what-might-have-been ! 
So, o'er the gulfs of Time, good cheer, 
John Cleveland, poet-cavalier! 




H 






ON A COPY OF THEOCRITUS 
(Venice, 1493) 

Theocritus, we love thy song, 

Where thyme is sweet and meads are sunny, 
Where shepherd swains and maidens throng, 

And bees Hyblean hoard their honey. 

Since ancient Syracusan days 

It year by year has grown the sweeter, 

For year by year life's opening ways 
Run more in prose and less in metre. 

And than this quarto, vellum-clad, 
You could not wish a rarer setting; 

Beholding, you must still be glad, 
If you behold without forgetting. 

Manutius was the Printer's name — 
(A Publisher was then unheard of) 

A fellow of some worthy fame, 
If history we take the word of. 

Think when its pages first were cut, 

And eager eyes above them hovered, 
Our proudest dwelling was a hut — 
America was just discovered! 



15 





Then Venice was indeed a queen, 
And taught the tawny Turk to fear her; 

Now has she lost her royal mien, 
And yet we could not hold her dearer. 

Betwixt these covers there is bound 
A charm that needeth no completion; 

A golden atmosphere is found 
At once Sicilian and Venetian. 

So, while our plausive song we raise 

And hail the bard whose name is famous, 
Let us for once divide the bays, 

And to the Printer cry — Laudamus! 




L 



16 



Jt 




It stands in a winding street, 
A quiet and restful nook, 
Apart from the endless beat 
Of the noisy heart of Trade. 
There's never a spot more cool 
Of a hot midsummer day 
By the brink of a forest pool, 
Or the bank of a crystal brook 
In the maples' breezy shade, 
Than the bookstall old and grey. 



Here are preeious gems of thought 
That were quarried long ago, 

Some in vellum bound, and wrought 
With letters and lines of gold; 
Here are curious rows of "calf," 
And perchance an Elzevir; 
Here are countless "mos" of chaff, 
And a parchment folio, 
Like leaves that are cracked with cold 
All puckered and brown and sere. 




17 






In every age and clime 

Live the monarchs of the brain : 

And the lords of prose and rhyme, 
Years after the long last sleep 
Has come to the kings of earth 
And their names have passed away, 
Rule on through death and birth; 
And the thrones of their domain 
Are found where the shades are deep, 
In the bookstall old and grey. 



18 




A FIRST EDITION 

A most exclusive elan are we, 

Proud of our peerless pedigree; 

Will Caxton fathered us, a man 

Shaped somewhat on the clerkly plan, 

But one of whom we're fond withal, 

Industrious and not prodigal. 

Now comely, now unkempt, we show — 

Octavo, duodecimo! 

But whether dimmed or bright our page,. 

We glow to know our lineage. 

Black-lettered first, clear-lettered last — 

The present, or the golden past — 

We stand content our fame upon 

From fly-leaf through to colophon. 




As among all patricians, fine 

And fair ensamples of our line 

Arouse our self-complacency; 

Viz., Caxton ; s priceless Malory; 

A Tyndale Bible (choicer none!); 

A Shakespeare in full folio done; 

A song that tells of Paradise 

Which Milton saw with darkened eyes; 

And that rare "find" of later vein, 

The little liber, Tamerlane! 




19 






And now a word of warning, ye 
Who seek our constant company! 
Unless your purses, plethoric, hold 
The round and clearly-minted gold, 
Abjure us, shun us, lest the night 
Creep on ye, and pale candle-light 
Find ye by us uncomf orted, 
And slipping supperless to bed! 



20 






BOOKMAN'S PLEASURES 

Life yields rich pleasures in its varied round, — 
The fair unfolding of the season's store, — 

Hearts by the ties of faithful friendship bound, 
The litany of love and all its lore; 
The bud of beauty opening evermore 
In forms of fresh perfection that allure ; 
The morn's unfailing miracle; the pure 

And passionless decline of twilight-tide: 
Yet what gives joy more sweet, serene and 
sure 

Than some dear volume by the ingle-side! 

There is delight in melody; — the sound 

The minstrel sea makes as it woos the shore; 
The strains the wind evokes; the music found 

Where feathered throats their ecstasy 
outpour; — 

In stilled aroma from the rose's core; 

In the mime's grave or comic portraiture; 

In rest and dreams when rigid frosts immure; 
In deeds self-sacrifice has sanctified; 

Yet what gives joy more sweet, serene and 
sure 
Than some dear volume by the ingle-side! 






21 





Theocritus whom Grecian garlands crowned; 

The Mantuan who Augustan laurels wore; 
The sire of English song who broke the ground 

Whereon have trodden many a tuneful score; 

Avon's immortal son whom all adore; 

The twain who sleep by Roman walls secure; 

And he who far from Highland loch and moor 
Keeps his last tryst where southern seas sweep 
wide; 

Aye, what gives joy more sweet, serene and 
sure 
Than some dear volume by the ingle-side! 

Friends, of the many pleasures that we poor 
Mortals may taste, the while that we endure 

This wayfaring, till death our paths divide, 
Know there is none more sweet, serene and sure 

Than some dear volume by the ingle-side! 




22 



dCCS* 




For some, about the honeyed heart of June, 
To drift and dream, amid the golden shine, 
Down placid waters, is the dearest boon; 
For some, what time the skies incarnadine, 
To list the thunder of the ancient brine 
That swirls, as though 'twere chaff, the stoutest 
prow ; 
For me, line marrying with jeweled line, 
"A book of verses underneath the bough!" 

For some the light of the enamored moon, 

Flooding the sky as with ethereal wine, 
The while impassioned night-birds trill in tune, 

And Love plucks lilies for the votive shrine ! 

For some the prospect, distant and divine, 
Billowing below a mighty mountain's brow; — 

For me, serene, sequestered, and supine, 
"A book of verses underneath the bough!" 

For some the mellow and mysterious croon 
Of the warm south, at twilight faint and fine ; 

For some the garden, with its radiant rune,— 
The violet, the pink, the eglantine; 



23 




For some such ruins as the Rhone and Rhine ' 
With a vague charm of legendry endow; 
For me, who reverence the wreathed Nine, 
"A hook of verses underneath the bough!" 

Whose verses? Thine, Poet of the Vine, 
Omar, high honored, both of yore and now! 

How sweet to read until the day's decline 
Thy book of verses underneath the bough ! 




24 





A FIRST EDITION COPY OF LOVELACE 

(British Museum Reading-Room) 

The yellow half-light shines within 

On many a bulky quire; 
Without the pavements roar with din, 

And reek with ooze and mire. 

Sold at a bookshop called "The Gun" 

That stood in Ivy Lane, 
The page before me, soiled and dun, 

Exhales both joy and pain. 

Brooding upon those troublous times, 

In most bewitching wise 
I see from out the courtly rhymes 

The sweet Lucasta rise. 

The brow no grief has writ upon, 

The Saxon eyes sincere, 
And all the winsome grace that won 

The poet-cavalier. 

The voice — but hold! what voice is that? 

'Tis Sylvia's, I aver! 
A beauty in a Bond Street hat 

Who begs me go with her. 

Who could withstand that tender touch, 

Those glances that implore? 
Dick Lovelace, though I love thee much, 

Forsooth, I love her more! 



25 






IN AN ALCOVE 

Once more am I at middle day 

In tranquil twilight hid away, 

Where not a sound disturbs the sense 

Of book-encompassed indolence. 

Pale, grave-eyed Science does not brood 

Above this sunless solitude, 

Nor does Romance's ardent face 

With antique glamour fill the place; 

A fairer form the vision views, 

The gracious presence of the Muse. 

Small meed of gold she offers those 

Who leave the wider ways of Prose 

To follow where her foot-fall leads 

Along the asphodelian meads, 

Nor is she prodigal to lay 

Upon the brow the wreathed bay: 

Yet are her votaries content, 

Aye, more, their lot seems opulent, 

If on them be by her conferred 

Some transient, dream-evoking word! 

It may be but a whisper low, 

Yet straightway are the skies aglow; 

It may be but the lightest breath, 

And yet how it illumineth! 

And though beyond all heart-appeal 

Her lips a cruel silence seal, 

A holier influence fills the air 

Through her benignant presence there; 

Ah, how would earth and heaven unroll 

Could one but know her lyric soul! 



26 






WILLIAM WINSTANLEY, CRITIC 
(1687) 

Long are the years, Sir Critic, long, 
Since you your galaxy of song 
Set with such pomp and proud intent 
Fair in the Muse's firmament! 
We can but smile at your acclaim, 
Or be it praise, or be it blame; — 
Whether at Milton's fame you flout, 
Cry how his candle is snuffed out, 
And glory, in judicial ease, 
O'er his poetic obsequies; 
Or whether you the merits chant 
Of Cleveland or of Davenant; 
Patronize Shakespeare, or dismiss 
Herrick with light hypothesis. 

Out of the misty long ago 
This truth your volume lives to show, — - 
That, though their wit be Hermes-shod, 
Critics, like Jove, do sometimes nod. 
'Tis Time alone, with certain hand, 
Winnows the gold from shard and sand. 




%» 



27 






A little stand without the door 

Whereon scant treasure is arrayed, 
Yet just enough to tempt explore 

The inner depths of dust and shade; 

Enter; how glade on bookish glade 
Parts right and left to peering eyes, 

Proclaiming both to man and maid — 
This is the bookman's paradise! 

There is a shelf of ancient lore, 

Black-lettered pages overlaid 
With umber mottles, score on score; 

There is an alcove filled with frayed 

Tall folios standing stiff and staid, 
Like kniahts of mediaeval guise; 

Open, and why 'tis straight displayed 
This is the bookman's paradise. 

Delve deep, and with what golden ore, — 
What riches will your hands be weighed I 

Each corner owns its precious store, — 
Poets from Homer down to Praed, 
Philosophers, and those that trade 

In tales that scoffers label ''lies"; — 
The few whose fame shall never fade; — 

This is the bookman's paradise. 

Collectors, of each grain and grade, 

When ye shall come to "price" a prize, 

Although ye may be sore dismayed, 
This is the bookman's paradise! 



28 




BOOKWORM'S PLAINT 

To-day, when I had dined my fill 
Upon a Caxton, — you know Will, — 
I crawled forth o'er the colophon 
To bask awhile within the sun; 
And having coiled my sated length, 
I felt anon my whilom strength 
Slip from me gradually, till deep 
I dropped away in dreamful sleep, 
Wherein I walked an endless maze, 
And dined on Caxtons all my days. 



Then I woke suddenly. Alas! 
What in my sleep had come to pass? 
That priceless first edition row, — 
Squat quarto and tall folio, — 
Had, in my slumber, vanished quite; 
Instead, on my astonished sight 
The newest novels burst, — a gay 
And most unpalatable array! 
I, that have battened on the best, 
Why should I thus be dispossessed, 
And with starvation, or the worst 
Of diets, cruelly be curst? 




29 






TO WILLIAM SHARP 

(FIONA MACLEOD) 

The waves about Iona dirge, 

The wild winds trumpet over Skye ; 

Shrill around Arran's cliff-bound verge 
The gray gulls cry. 



Spring wraps its transient scarf of green, 
Its heathery robe, round slope and scar; 

And night, the scudding wrack between, 
Lights its lone star. 

But you who loved these outland isles, 

Their gleams, their glooms, their mysteries, 
Their eldritch lures, their druid wiles, 
Their tragic seas, 

Will heed no more, in mortal guise, 
The potent witchery of their call, 

If dawn be regnant in the skies, 
Or evenfall. 

Yet, though where suns Sicilian beam 
The loving earth enfolds your form, 

I can but deem these coasts of dream 
And hovering storm 

Still thrall your spirit — that it bides 
By far Iona's kelp-strewn shore, 

There lingering till time and tides 
Shall surge no more. 



30 



J& 




In a dim nook beneath the street 
Where Pine and noisy Nassau meet, 
This little book of song I found 
In a scarred morocco quaintly bound. 
Each musty and bemildewed leaf 
Bespeaks long years of grime and grief; 
Long years, — for on the title-page 
A dim date tells the volume's age. 

Ah, who was he, the bard that sung 
In that dead century's stately tongue 
In those evanished days of yore? — 
An empty name — I know no more! 
Yet, as I read, will fancy form 
A face whose glow is fresh and warm, 
A frank, clear eye wherein I view 
A nature open, genial, true. 

Mayhap he dreamed of fame, but fate 
Eas barred to him that temple's gate; 
He loved, — was loved, — for one divines 
An answered passion in his lines; 
He died, ah, yes, he died, but when 
He ceased to walk the ways of men, 
Or where his clay with mother clay 
Commingles sweetly, who can say! 




31 





In pity will I give his book 

A not too lonely study nook, 

Where kindly gleams of light may play 

Across it of a wintry day; 

And I will take it down sometimes 

To eon the prim and polished rhymes. 

"Will thus, when the gray years have fled, 

Some book of mine be housed and read? 




B» 



22 




On Goldsmith's grave to-day 
I found a wreath of bay, 
Laid by some loving hand; whose, none 
may say. 

Though since he ceased to be 

The surge of Time's great sea 

Has swept unceasing, green his memory t 

For through his limpid lines, 
Unfailing, one divines 
A humorous tenderness that sings and 
shines. 

'Twas his unconscious part 
To touch the human heart 
With a fine feeling that is more than art. 

So, where his bones repose 

In the gray Temple-close, 

Shall mingle laurel, ivy and the rose! 




k, 



33 






IZAAK WALTON'S NAME 

As I went down the crowded Fleet, 

An idler without aim, 
I marked above the roaring street 

Dear Izaak Walton's name. 

A marble tablet in the wall 
(Saint Dunstan's in the West) 

A brief but fair memorial 
In graven lines expressed. 

How sweet 'mid London's turbid ways, 
'Neath skies so dull and dim, 

To find in terse but gracious phrase 
This kindly word of him! 

Dear Izaak of the simple heart, 

The quiet country love! — 
I saw before my vision start 

The winding dale of Dove; 

Its slopes that shimmered in the sun, 
Its stream that rippling ran, 

And on the grassy margin one — 
One happy fisherman! 

Some treasure statesmen, martyrs, kings, 

Heroes of noble fame, 
But here a vagrant rhymer sings 

Dear Izaak Walton's name! 






THE SONNET 

What is the sonnet? "Tis a lovely flower 
Of fourteen perfect petals! From the bloom 
Exhales so soft, so subtle a perfume 

That it has sweetened many an empty hour; 

Born in a beautiful Italian bower, 
Fair root it found beneath the glow and gloom 
Of changeful English skies, and welcome room 

In other climes, each richer for its dower. 

What passionate attar Shakespeare from it won 1 
How it for Milton bourgeoned, and how Keats 

Nurtured it gladly in his garden-close! 
Still in its heart hide undiscovered sweets; 
So, poets, put your fondest care thereon, 
As doth a gardener on his rarest rose! 





35 




Muse, thou hast been my gracious solace long, 
Making melodious discordant days, 
Leading my feet adown the pleasant ways 

Within the precincts of the gates of Song. 

Thou hast interpreted grim Winter's wrong, 
The vernal wonder, Summer's bright displays, 
The pomp of Autumn; many a varied phase 

That life reveals with its trans-shifting throng. 



The rich inheritor through thee am I 
Of castles, aye, of kingdoms! Every clime 
And age yields something from its treasure- 
store 
For thee to clothe anew and vivify. 
Dust buried by the tireless hands of Time 
Thou hast transmuted into magic ore! 



36 



Ja 




You who have quaffed from Aganippe's spring, 
And know the kindling rapture, hail and hear ! 
Your eyes have caught the vision 
morning-clear, 

The poignant, incommunicable thing, 

That bade you ope your silent lips and sing, 
Fond and forgetful, and fain but to hear 
The music swell and ebb, to you as dear 

As its own flute-notes to the golden-wing. 



Be you contented, though on evil days 

Your paths have fallen when the art of yore 

So reverenced is held as is a shard; 
Sing on, sing on, nor falter nor deplore ! 
He to the Muse the truest tribute pays 

Who finds in song song's most divine 
reward ! 




37 




A COPY OF BAYARD TAYLOR'S 

"XIMENA" 



This was the first libation that he poured 
Upon the consecrated shrine of Song, 
His sovereign lady through his whole life long, 
Howe'er he wandered, worshipped and adored; 
Whether he strayed where Syrian vultures 
soared 
In the blue vault, or where the turbaned 

throng 
Surged in swart Egypt, or with lash and thong 
Urged the swift sledge o'er Lapland field and 
fiord. 



Bare little tome of meek and modest mien, 
Scanning your pages now the years have run 
Through many a lustrum since you saw 
the day, 
I seem to read your buoyant lines between, 
Lines where Youth treads the daffodilian way, 
How high of heart was our Deucalion! 




38 





A SUMMER MOOD 

The majesty of the Miltonic line 
Allures me not to-day, nor paradise, 
Unless it be in Julia's winsome eyes 

As hymned by Herrick, with his lute-note fine; 

Not the Shakespearean altar-fire divine 
Beguileth me, save where, in tender wise, 
It plays through Rosalind's questions and 
replies, 

Or Beatrice's sallies set a-shine. 



The day is one of laughing Lovelace mood, 
Tricksy with frolic fancies such as gave 
To Suckling's wit its nimbleness and zest; 
For me Terpsichore, the Muse they wooed — 
Those cavaliers so debonair and brave — 
And at her maddest and her merriest ! 




39 




The marshes spread in the autumnal sun 
Their symphony of blended green and gold 
As when he saw them, while the multifold 

Tide-heralds of the ocean race and run 

Vociferous landward, and the creek-banks dun 
Feel the cool gush of waters o'er them rolled; 
Inlet and cove caressed are and consoled, 

And the parched meads have cooling solace won. 

Ofttimes from sweet communion with his peers 
In that fair bourn beyond the dusk and dawn 
Whither he went, our eyes with grief 
bedimmed, 
(Ah, stern are the irrevocable years!) 
I dream that he is earthward backward drawn 
To these lone marshes that he loved and 
hymned. 



L_ 



40 



A 




PHILIP FBENEAU 

Now that the vesper-planet's violet glow 
Is smothered in a welter of gray cloud, 
And all the winds that sweep the sky are loud, 
I mind me how, one white night long ago, 
Our earliest poet, valiant-souled Freneau, 
By the stern stress of years assailed and 
bowed, 

Fell by the way, and found a fatal shroud 
In the benumbing silence of the snow! 

When the young nation shook with war's grim 
throes, 
The smiting of his song was as a sword, 
The light of it was as a beacon flame; 
And though the drift of Time's unpitying snows 
Upon the mound that hides his dust be poured, 
It may not dim the glory of his name! 




41 






GBENVILLE MELLEN 

Poet that livest in a single line, — 
"Above the fight the lonely bugle grieves," — 
About thy grave on cloud-encompassed eves 

The banded winds in consonance combine 

To breathe forth battle strains; — a fitting shrine 
For such impassioned utterance! — the leaves 
Falling the while, and sad autumnal sheaves 

Against the sunset etched in weird design. 

There is the pathos of all mourning airs, 
And of the fading pageant of the year, 
In unfulfilled ambition such as thine; 
And yet thy brow one leaf of laurel wears; 
Niggard of favor is the Muse austere, 
Poet that livest in a single line! 




42 






ON RE-READING SCOTT 

Muse, for a little while put by the lute! 

The shawm, the cymbal, and the drum be 
thine! 

The imperious trumpet, evermore the sign 
Of arms and banners and of high dispute! 
Let for a space the lips of love be mute, 

While martial words with martial airs 
combine ! 

Away luxurious ease, with song and wine — 
Dreams and desires of Pleasure's languid fruit I 



Hail the free winds abroad upon the moors, 
The caves, the crags, the forests, and the 
sound 
Of mighty deeds sword-done by land and 
sea! 
Aye, hail the lofty spirit that endures 

Through all the years from Time's remotest 
bound — 
The spirit of leal-hearted chivalry! 




43 




Beyond where Scylla and Charybdis roared, 
In the old days of hale Odyssean worth, 
Where pale Proserpine of joy had dearth 

In the fair fields of Enna the deplored, 

iWhere asphodels still show their golden hoard,- 
The flowerful largess of Sicilian earth, — 
There, it is said, the sonnet had its birth, 

A limpid song from melody's chalice poured. 



And they, the bards who shaped the stately form, 
Their names are but blown waifs upon the 
wind; 
Their bones with yellowed dust long since 
were one; 
But still the sonnet, living, vital, warm, 
In many a bosom lovingly enshrined, 
Sings on and on in choral antiphon. 





What of the bards who in love's white demesne 
Made lyric dalliance, and linked their rhymes 
Beside the rippling Rhone in bygone times, 

Each choosing some sweet lady for his queen? 

Gallant they were, nor scorned the battle scene, 
Albeit they tuned beneath the scented limes 
Their soft lute-pleadings to the castle chimes 

Of fair Provence, girt with its vineyards green. 



Shapers of song, if but a jest to-day 
Your art is made, a byword on the lip 
Of those whose hearts this age of trade 
immures, 
Take courage! you, by right of comradeship, 
Have rich inheritance from such as they; — 
You are the heirs of all the troubadours! 




45 




THE SONNETS OF BOSSETTI 

Dream-led, methought I wandered through a maze 
Wherein immortal Beauty had her bower; 
Delicious waftures from the jasmine-flower, 

And floating veils of delicate amber haze, 

Mysteriously adown mysterious ways 

Were borne, and every part of every hour 
Had Song's enchanting cadence for its dower, 

Paeans immaculate in Beauty's praise. 

like this beguiling maze his sonnets seem 
Wherein the questing wanderer may find 
Harmonies haunting as the twilight wind, 

Charms as elusive as the shores of dream; 
Perfumes far-drifted from the Isles of Ind, 

And all of Beauty's glamour and its gleam. 





40 





I can recall within some orient land, 
Where every dawn is like a golden psalm, 
How in a mosque, beneath a stately palm, 

I saw a rare mosaic, deftly planned — 

Marble as stainless as is Beauty's hand; 
Deep chrysoberyl glistening like the calm 
Of ocean; agate like the tufted balm 

Burning in August woods when noons are bland. 

Aye, and the burnished bosom of the jade, 
The violet veins of lapis-lazuli, 
The topaz-heart that holds the sun in fee; 
Thus is your song-mosaic interlaid, 
Not only lovely to the outer eye, 
But to the inner sense a harmony! 




47 





The varied Book of Life, 

How hurriedly we con! 
Through pages sown with grief and 

We reach the colophon. 



We would peruse it still 
Despite its stress, but nay, 

It must be closed, saith the Great Will, 
And laid aside for aye! 



dsCSf 



APR 24 1913 





